


Void Killer

by demonic-figs (the_three_garridebs)



Category: Marvel, Marvel (Comics), Marvel 616, Venom (Comics), Venom (Movie 2018)
Genre: (anything that would not be shown on a crime/detective cable show would not appear here), (i describe the story in the description just skip to that), (no shocking gore though a cadaver is described in detail), Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Coffee, Indulgent Amount of Dan Lewis, Lighthouses, Male Pronouns for Venom Symbiote (Marvel), Motels, Murder Mystery, Other, Possessive Venom Symbiote (Marvel), Symbiote Sex, sorry in advance for that, symbrock
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-03
Updated: 2021-03-03
Packaged: 2021-03-15 21:54:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29814942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_three_garridebs/pseuds/demonic-figs
Summary: Eddie Brock arrives in Knull, Maine to get over his breakup and complete a novel. Unfortunately for him, he becomes entangled in a murder mystery, and is roped into assisting Detective Anne Weying and journalist Dan Lewis in discovering the true killer. Along the way, he also enlists the help of nervous local doctor, Dora Skirth, and disgruntled motel-owner, Mrs. Chen.And lurking beneath the waves of Sleeper Beach is something ancient...(This is very much inspired by Twin Peaks, Fargo, and the movie "The Lighthouse," but you don't have to watch any of those to understand the story. If you like those three things, you will probably like this fan fiction. And if not, I can promise you that Eddie and Venom will get together. But how...?)Other things included here: lighthouses, shitty but charming motels, crime-solving, elements of a workplace romantic comedy, people drinking coffee, misty beaches, and tentacles
Relationships: Dan Lewis/Anne Weying, Eddie Brock & Venom Symbiote, Eddie Brock/Venom Symbiote
Comments: 3
Kudos: 19





	Void Killer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to Knull, Maine.

Eddie eats jook in the morning and figures his novel will not be finished for another six months.

He can feel the frantic typing of his literary agent, as he thinks this. _What about your commitment? The contract? The marketing campaign?_ Eddie looks into his bowl of porridge, hunting for a morsel of tea egg with his chopsticks. He’s sick of it all. The endless variations of plot and location, the notes that lead to nothing. Eddie wonders why he bothers even sitting at this desk, pretending to work on his book. He hasn’t written a sentence worth publishing for a calendar year. No reason to perform this elaborate pantomime of an accomplished author.

There’s a sharp rap on the door and before he can yell _not now_ , Mrs. Chen is striding across the room. Eddie doesn’t have time to wonder why she doesn’t assume he’s naked, or busy, because she’s already berating him. 

“Sitting up here like a loner won’t help.” She sets a tray on the dresser with pot of tea and two stout green cups. Eddie watches her pour, movements brisk and precise. The subtle scent of oolong tea fills the room. He lifts one of the cups and raises it to her before taking a scalding swallow of tea. 

“I’m not a loner.”

Mrs. Chen gives him an incredulous look over the rim of her teacup.

“You barely talk to anyone staying here. And there’s so much company.” She reels off a list of names, various dusty personages who are also staying long-term at the Sleeper Beachside Motel. Eddie’s seen them hanging around the place, gruff men leftover from the fishing season, who smoke wooden pipes, and doze for hours in front of the fire.

Hardly company.

“I have to work a lot. I’m writing a book, remember?”

Mrs. Chen scoffs. “ _Writing a book_ , yeah, sure.” She takes a bowl of boiled peanuts from her tray and places it on Eddie’s desk. They’re flavored with soy sauce, and Eddie’s been eating handfuls of them during the day while he writes, or pretends to write, or thinks about writing.

“Why don’t you take a walk on the beach? It’s beachside.”

This is one of Mrs. Chen’s long-running themes, “it’s beachside.” As though the ocean’s nearness has somehow escaped Eddie since he moved to the motel six months ago, and he needs reaffirmation of the establishment’s choice location. But, he won’t leave. He knows Mrs. Chen is worried he’ll stop paying the inflated room rate. Lucky for her, he needs another six months. Maybe longer. Maybe after he finishes, he can just enjoy the motel, and Mrs. Chen’s brusque conversation, and the oolong tea.

Only to please her, Eddie agrees to take a walk on the beach. And she does seem pleased, when she finally bustles out, leaving a Mandarin-language meditation tape on his nightstand, and scolding him about turning the heat too high.

He surprises himself in the late afternoon by actually going.

Eddie can see his breath when he makes it outside. Faded green cedars stretch to the grey sky, rigid with ice. He imagines things will be nice here, in the full spring, when the pines are more gold than grey, and the beach roses actually bloom. In January though, the place is frigid and sour, salty air drying to Eddie’s lips the moment he steps to the scrubby overlook of Sleeper Beach.

Sleeper Beach is not a typical beach for swimming and sailing, but there is enough muddy sand and slabs of rock to comprise something like a shoreline. It stretches into the haze, beyond Eddie’s eye, the great Atlantic ocean rushing in and out to meet its jagged form. Eddie walks unevenly down the sloping sand bank that leads to the water, bracing himself against the tufts of dead grass that cling to the side of the outcropping.

There’s no one around.

All Eddie can see is the ocean, extending endlessly into the pale direction of the sky. And somewhere beneath the flat-bellied cloud that hands low over the coast, he can sense the weakened beams of the sun, which reflect white and silver off the wet beach.

He trudges across the beach, stopping occasionally to poke at moving pockets of sand, hoping to catch sight of a crab. None materialize.

 _You should just give up_ , he thinks, sneakers caking with mud. _You should admit, here and now, while there’s still time, that you won’t write the book. It’ll never come_.

Eddie squints up at the sky. Microscopic grains of sand graze his face, itch across his stubble. He rubs a hand over his forehead, wonders how anyone writes a novel, in the first place.

It wasn’t always this difficult.

Eddie huffs in a breath of the fetid, fishy air.

There was a time when the words came easy. He doesn’t think it’s because _she_ left, but he could just be kidding himself. 

Waves crash and break, air over foam over mud.

Things came naturally, when she was around. Eddie hates to admit this. Because then, the writing did not stem from him. The awards are hers. He wonders if he fears her absence more than he fears any part of his craft being owed to someone else. It's both, probably. 

Eddie is still thinking about this, about how _indebted_ he is to her, when he stumbles over a log.

Only, it’s not a log. It’s a woman.

A human woman, tangled in kelp, lying on the beach with her eyes wide open and her arms outstretched, eerily white on the marbled sand.

Very much dead.

“Oh, fuck,” Eddie says, and it sounds like an echo in his own ears.

“ _Fuck,_ ” he says, louder, digging into his coat pocket for his phone. He’s dimly aware he’s saying that words continuously, a percussive _fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck_ , but it doesn’t reach him. His vision flares white at the edges, and he retches lightly, staggering a few feet away to dry heave.

 _Oh_ , fuck.

He dials _911_ because it seems like the logical thing to do.

“911, what’s your emergency?”

Eddie shakily explains that he’s at Sleeper Beach, about a third way down the shore, and there is a _dead woman_ lying in front of him. And he just found her. He gulps rapidly as he speaks and turns away from the body. The dispatcher connects quickly to the local police department, and the conversation ends before Eddie can ask what he's supposed to do.

He settles for sitting on a slab of rock a bit away, still looking in the direction of the outcropping, away from the body. Her eyes are burned into his brain, dark and round and shocked, like she cannot believe she is drowning even as it is happening. “Oh, fuck,” Eddie says to himself, pressing his fingertips into his eyelids. He thinks of silence, of stillness, of nothingness.

Moments later, sirens blare.

A stream of police officers marches towards Eddie, and he calls out to them, standing on his rock and waving them down. He wants to cry with relief. _God_. He’s seen dead people before, as a child. Grandparents, and distant relatives, stiff and severe in satin-lined coffins. But never like this, with such brazen disregard for the appearance of the body. Eddie can’t stand this, he can’t stand to think that someone drowned, out here at this desolate point, completely alone.

The police begin the bureaucratic business of checking over the body while a woman with a blonde ponytail grabs Eddie by the arm and escorts him back up the beach. He realizes as they are walking she does not give him a chance to look back.

“You’re Eddie Brock,” she says, as they reach a parking lot nestled behind a thicket of yellowed grass. In the summertime, people bring their RVs here. Now, police cruisers are parked haphazardly across the lot, and she opens the backdoor to one of them. Eddie sits on the seat with his legs hanging out, catching his breath.

He tries to see something other than the dead woman’s eyes.

Rubbing a hand over his face, he asks “Heard of me?”

“Think I bought one of your books at an airport,” she replies.

Eddie shrugs. “Sounds about right.”

“I’m Detective Weying, with the local police. We’ll need you to come to the station and give a statement, if you don’t mind.”

“Yeah, whatever you need.”

She puffs out her cheeks, scratches the gravel with her boot. She reminds Eddie of a disgruntled Tinkerbell. Short and irritable and pretty. Eddie imagines she would hate this comparison, and keeps the observation to himself. 

“What are you doing here?” she asks, understandably curious about his sudden appearance in out-of-the-way Knull, Maine.

“Working on another book.”

“Ah.” Detective Weying smirks, and Eddie thinks she’s going to make a joke at his expense, but a silver car is pulling into the parking lot, and her attention is diverted. 

A tall man in a shabby corduroy jacket jumps out, and Eddie knows this type. A journalist.

He strides over, apparently unbothered by Weying’s stormy expression, notebook already flipped open to a blank page.

“Dan Lewis, reporter for the Knull Standard,” the man says. He shakes Eddie’s hand and flashes him a brilliant smile, which makes Eddie only slightly queasy. “Could I buy you a coffee? Have a chat?"

Weying waves her arms. “Excuse me, _Dan_ , aren't you supposed to be on research?”

Eddie gets the sense that he’s missing something.

“No one’ll notice I’m gone,” Dan says dismissively.

“You can’t be here right now. I’ll get fired if they think I’m giving tips to the Standard,” Weying says urgently, motioning for Dan to leave.

“Anne, don’t worry so much.”

Dan leans over and kisses her tenderly on the cheek, and Eddie is briefly, painfully aware he’s being made an interloper. The embarrassment of being included in their professional secret is almost enough to distract him from the fact he’s probably being considered as a potential suspect. 

Flustered, Detective Weying—Anne now, Eddie supposes—ducks into the car and indicates Eddie should close the door. They leave Dan chuckling to himself in the parking lot, and the beach crawling with cops.

**###**

“You were just walking and…”

“I found her. Lying there.”

“Did you touch her?”

Eddie shakes his head, and sips the oily coffee someone handed him out of pity. 

“Anything strike you as being unusual about the scene?”

Eddie thinks, but can’t remember anything that jumped out at him. All he sees are those open, surprised eyes. He mentions this, that she looked surprised, but Anne barely raises an eyebrow at the suggestion her expression is a clue. 

“Did you know that woman, on the beach?”

Eddie didn’t.

Anne taps her pencil on the metal table contemplatively. “Local homeless woman. People around Knull know her as Maria. She was nice. Liked to sing.” 

“Do you think someone killed her?” Eddie assumed she’d drowned, but reviewing the image of her body on the beach, he wonders why he ever thought this was a foregone conclusion.

Anne shrugs. “Too soon to tell. There's not enough data. We’re keeping our options open, for now, and we’ll let you know if there’s anything else you can do.” Her green eyes soften, and for a moment her steely demeanor wavers. “I know you want to help,” she says quietly.

She pushes roughly back from the table and stands. “Is there anyone you want to call to pick you up?” Eddie thinks for a moment, and answers, “The owner of the Sleeper Beachside Motel. And do you mind telling me where the restroom is?”

Eddie washes his hands in warm water, to rinse the briny feeling from his skin. He looks at himself in the mirror and is taken aback by how shitty he looks: startled, pale, sleepless. Good God. No wonder people are handing him Styrofoam cups of coffee, he looks like he could use a fucking _drink._

There’s a flushing noise, and a thin, dark-haired man walks up to the sinks near Eddie. His expression is curiously calm, and his eyes are brown, doe-like. Slung over his shoulder is a black camera bag. Eddie looks over at him surreptitiously, curious if he’s also works at the Knull Standard. Before he can bring himself to ask, the man turns the corner and disappears.

Eddie shrugs at himself and finishes washing

Mrs. Chen arrives in a beat up car that looks older than the police station. When she sees Eddie, her face falls. 

“Eddie!” She holds him at arm’s length, inspecting him up and down. “You look like shit.”

He allows himself to be maneuvered into the car. Mrs. Chen is beside herself.

“Jesus, a dead woman on the beach. Can’t they find a different place to put them. People are trying to take a walk,” she mutters under her breath.

Eddie leans back in his seat, willing away the sight of the woman’s eyes, the two voids, forever staring into nothing. He hopes they closed her eyes. He hopes she’s finally resting. Mrs. Chen glances over at him, not bothering to hide her concern. 

“Next time, Mrs. Chen, I’m just gonna stay in my room.” 

Eventually, they swerve into the parking lot of the Sleeper Beachside Motel. Mrs. Chen mentions something about bringing dinner, and how Eddie should try the tape she put on his nightstand, but Eddie just waves her off. He climbs the creaky steps to his room, throws open the door, and plants himself facedown on the bed.

There’s no way to predict how certain things will affect you in life, especially things as horrifying and unexpected as finding a cadaver on a perfectly ordinary beach. Eddie knows this. And yet, he’s surprised by how poorly and personally he’s taking it. Because, people shouldn’t die like that. No one should die so brutally, and be discovered by some anonymous schmuck who writes paperbacks for frequent flyers. He blinks, and he sees her sand-speckled neck, her gaunt cheeks, her gaping mouth. 

He wants to forget. 

No. 

Eddie turns and sits up abruptly, something beginning to cook in the back of his mind. He walks to his desk and sits down, removes a new yellow legal pad from his backpack. His breath is shallow, as though he’s afraid to disturb whatever mysterious force has overcome him.

No, he doesn’t want to forget. Eddie picks up his pencil, and his hand begins to move, scrawling across the page in an impatient, blocky print. 

He wants to write. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm literally shaking i've been thinking of this idea for so long, and i'm really excited to share it with all the people still kicking around in the symbrock fandom. thank you very much for reading this first chapter!! comments are always greatly appreciated.


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